Detainees of a Turkish intelligence cell confessed to planting devices in the city of Raqqa and its countryside, northern Syria, targeting the headquarters of the Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria (Asayish), and sending video recordings of their operations in addition to monitoring activities for personalities in the city.
These confessions came in a file held by the Asayish forces in northeastern Syria after the arrest of three members of the cell, where North Press was able to view their details.
The recruitment of new cell members started in 2020, when 39-year-old Raqqa native Badr Turky al-Fahl returned from Turkey to Tel Abyad with the aim of returning to the city with his two sons, two years after his separation from his wife in Turkey.
At the beginning of the war in Syria, al-Fahl joined the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions, and stated that he left them when they took over Raqqa in 2013, leaving for Turkey after being imprisoned for more than four months by the Islamic State (ISIS), which later took control of the city.
Recruitment for Turkish intelligence
In Tel Abyad, al-Fahl met Hussein Faraj al-Muhammad, who is also from Raqqa, and a member of the al-Sharqiya Army faction and an agent of Turkish intelligence. Muhammad began investing heavily in al-Fahel’s needs, as well as those of his two sons and brother, who later came to the town of Suluk in the Tel Abyad countryside.
When al-Fahl told him that he did not have money to pay those amounts, he replied that there was no problem with the date of payment, but he returned after a while and demanded $1,300 for what he spent on them, with detailed receipts.
When al-Fahl, who is now detained by the Asayish forces, said that he did not have the money, he was threatened with arrest and imprisonment by the the al-Sharqiya Army faction and imprison him if he did not pay what he owed, according to him.
In this way, al-Muhammad succeeded in forcing al-Fahl to join cells working with Turkish intelligence, and learned that some of these cells were run by a leader of the opposition factions known as Abu Shuja’.
Al-Fahl added that al-Muhammad gave him two mines and taught him how to use them, while another person drove him to the city of Raqqa and told him to hide them until he was asked to use them all in a separate operation.
The city of Raqqa witnessed incidents of explosive devices and mines targeting members of the SDF, employees of the Autonomous Administration, notables and residents in the area.
Some of these operations were claimed by ISIS, while others were interpreted as remnants of war since the years of war against the group.
In the Turkish Intelligence Agency’s work report in 2020, its head Hakan Fidan said that the measures taken by the agency showed “positive results” by increasing its effectiveness in the field of foreign intelligence.
“Our agency has assumed many duties in accordance with our country’s interests in conflict areas, and has increased foreign intelligence activities,” he added.
Monitoring people, transporting explosives
20-year-old Raqqa native Yasser Ayoub al-Abd stayed in Turkey between 2013 and 2019, and worked there with his brother Saleh and his friend Badr al-Fahl in construction before returning to Raqqa.
Saleh was deported from Turkey because of his work in tobacco smuggling, so he returned to Raqqa, and then went to the northern countryside of Hasakah in early 2020 to join the pro-Turkish factions.
But Saleh and al-Fahl returned to Raqqa and offered al-Abd work, asking him to start filming military points with his phone.
Al-Abd said that he first refused this because he was married and had responsibilities, but later accepted to film the Asayish headquarters and the Autonomous Administration institutions in the western part of Raqqa.
One day, 33-year-old Abdulkarim Ayoub al-Abd, a third brother of Saleh and Yasser, was surprised when the latter entered his house carrying explosive devices, which he said that Saleh and al-Fahl had asked him to hide in his home.
The two brothers decided to hide the explosives under the dirt outside, but the hard soil was difficult to dig, which made them afraid to reveal themselves, so they hid them inside the oven in the yard of the house.
Abu Shuja’, the coordinator between the members of the cell and Turkish intelligence, used to identify the targets and request monitoring of people after sending their photos and locations of their homes to al-Fahl, who filmed the monitoring process and the targeting operations and sent them to him.
However, the Asayish arrested his brothers, so he took his children and headed to the city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) “in order to free myself of the demands of the members in Tel Abyad,” he said during his confessions.
When al-Fahl entered Sere Kaniye on a motorcycle with his two sons, the Turkish checkpoint noticed that there was no license plate on his bike, so the officers referred him to the second checkpoint, which discovered that he did not hold the ID card issued by the pro-Turkish local council in the city.
Al-Fahl’s referral to a faction’s security branch prompted him to call Abu Shuja’, who had asked him to hide in Raqqa after his brothers’ arrest, and after blaming him for leaving without permission, sent someone from the factions to receive him with a sum of $500.
Targeting headquarters and planting mines
A few days later, Abu Shuja’ called back to ask about a second mine which was with him. He told him that he had thrown it into the river before he fled.
Abu Shuja’ added $800 as the price for the mine that was thrown in the river to al-Fahl’s debts, which began to multiply.
“He told me ‘you will pay $2600 tomorrow.’ I said I did not have it. He said, ‘send $2,500,’” al-Fahl said.
“He started threatening me: ‘You are a traitor who must be liquidated. We send you a mine and you either throw it or detonate it in ruins’,” he added.
Days later, al-Fahl was asked to take mines to Raqqa.
“He said, ‘either you have to work or pay your debts.’”
Al-Fahl took a mine to al-Shanina area, 20 km north of Raqqa, filmed the process of laying it, and sent the film.
The mechanism of the action requires attaching the film to the date and the targeted area with a special code for Abu Shuja’, whose true identity is not known by the cell members, according to al-Fahl’s confessions.
The next operation was the targeting of the Asayish headquarters in Raqqa.
“They sent me the location of the launcher. Saleh was with me. We found it with two fillings and four grenades. We hit the building at dawn with a shell and ran away.”
“The other operation was placing a bomb and detonating it when a military vehicle passed by. I was the executor and Yasser had to film it,” he said.
“In the Panorama neighborhood, southwest Raqqa, it did not explode. He took it to al-Basel Street, west Raqqa, and it also did not explode because the two bombs were defective,” Yasser said.
Al-Fahl was asked to bury the two devices in a specific location with an explosive device attached and film it for sending.
There, in agreement with the Asayish, he was arrested in order to lure Yasser to arrest him, also in the Jawad Anzour park in the city.
A patrol went to bring Abdulkarim, who was waiting for Yasser to return after delivering the explosives to al-Fahl.